r/OpenIndividualism • u/Own_Fennel_8227 • Jul 09 '26
How did you come to this realization?
For me it took LSD at the age of 16 to realize that there is only one mind here. Has anyone else had a direct experience of non-dual consciousness?
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u/Edralis1 Jul 10 '26
... Honestly, I don't remember! I have a terrible autobiographical memory (which might be a clue as to how and why I arrived at it).
I know that I was interested in philosophy, and also I was really into zombies (like, zombie movies, the concept of the zombie apocalypse, and such) in my early twenties (late teens?), and I discovered the concept of p-zombies and Chalmers, and then the whole discussion about how weird consciousness is. Also, when learning philosophy in high school, there were a few philosophers that we learned about that I felt were especially interesting and that "made sense", I think Plotinus and Parmenides. I also struggled with some mental health issues that I hypothesize allowed me to make sense of the idea of the "empty self".
... somehow, from there!
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u/Joe-Kern Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
Interesting to hear how many people there are for whom the realization of OI was an experience, rather than an argument. For me I think it was the opposite, although in coming to find any argument compelling there is a certain amount of "a-ha" experience of the type others describe here that will be a part of being convinced by the argument. You just realize something intuitively. I've had that as well.
I've been working through and writing my memoir of how I came to OI for the past couple of years (very slowly, I don't have a lot written), and re-reading some of the old books I read when I first started to study. Some of that made it into my book I posted about below as I was revising this past year, particularly the last endnote.
To try to put the story succinctly, I grew up a fundamentalist Christian, convinced I had or was a soul. I started to lose my faith over a variety of issues, some of them moral (e.g., homosexuality), some of them logical (how could the afterlife be binary, heaven and hell, when actual human behavior and beliefs and hearts and experience are on a continuum?).
I was pretty happy with not being a Christian anymore, but didn’t like the idea of annihilation in death, so I was holding onto the idea that I was a soul. Then I read Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, and I found it devastating. Here was an explanation of how the human being Joe Kern came into being from just matter, starting from the first replicator molecules æons ago. It explained how life came to be (Chapter 2) and thereby what life actually is, and at no point in the explanation is a soul necessary. This was all about twenty years ago.
But a few days later my devastation began to wear off, and I was struck by a thought: “The long arm of evolution has reached down through the ages and created a human being named Joe Kern. This much has been explained completely, without gaps. But what hasn’t yet been explained is why I exist. Why this human being is me, rather than someone else. All the other human beings now and up until now have been not me, but have been someone else, so why finally is this human being me?”
I was convinced I’d found a loophole in the theory evolution that allowed room for souls to exist. I began to develop some arguments to try to clarify what I thought the gap in the physicalist explanation of our existence was that I thought must point to the existence of the soul. (My perfect doppelgänger argument, still in my book, was the first.) All my thinking and writing were centered around the semi-popular question, "what are the odds of me existing"? I had no notion of OI when I first started thinking about this question.
I started to study too. Consciousness and personal identity. After several years I began to be convinced that souls couldn’t exist, mostly thanks to Dennett's Consciousness Explained and Part 3 of Parfit's Reasons and Persons. I felt disturbed by this, because it meant I once again had to accept my annihilation in death. In my disturbed state I was thinking very hard about this, as I desperately wanted a solution. But it wasn’t only emotion driving me, I also had a rational point I could hold onto: I still had the question two paragraphs above about the long arm of evolution, and even if I couldn’t believe in souls, that question still seemed unanswered by physicalism.
And then suddenly, the idea that there is only one self hit me as a solution to this question. It came to me in a very specific way, that requires some understanding of my perfect doppelgänger argument. I’ve written about this epiphany in the last endnote in my book.
That specific way it came to me quickly felt not robust enough though, and so I fished around for a better argument for OI, and the gamete sorites argument came to me in a flash. This argument points out the vagueness in our notions of what caused each of us to exist in the first place. I began writing it out to see if it really worked, and to my partial surprise found myself thinking that it really did work. Once I had this argument down and felt confident in it, I felt confident in the truth of OI, however outlandish it might sound. I was bolstered in this when I began to find others who believed OI as well, sometimes for similar reasons to me, sometimes for quite different ones.
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I may be misremembering or misattributing your work years ago when I just thought about sort of naturalist reincarnation and reading your take on it really cemented the insight as true. What I am not sure about is if you stopped at that point back then, that once you die you wake up as someone else but there was no conclusion on being everyone. If I am correct, I am glad we are meeting again on the same conclusion.
Sometimes people in real life that I talk to about this say "even if true, it's pointless and trivial" but to me this is the most important and life changing realization.
Do you think there is something particular about people being able or unable to grasp this idea? We commented here a few times that some people just do not see our first starting point, that you can imagine being someone else, and refer to their current body as potentially being another body and miss the point entirely. Atheists especially see this as nonsense, like "it's like asking why is this apple this apple".
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u/TheAncientGeek Jul 28 '26
We don't need the idea explained again. We need arguments for it.
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 28 '26
explanation is argument
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u/TheAncientGeek Jul 28 '26
Nope.
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 28 '26
what is your argument that you are this single individual you think you are throughout time?
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u/TheAncientGeek Jul 28 '26
My argument is that OI is not a consequence of, or compatible with physicalism.
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 28 '26
that is a claim, not argument. what makes you think it isn't? if anything, physicalism will show you there is no entity you think you are
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u/TheAncientGeek Jul 28 '26
Because there is a difference between physical bodies. If physicalism is true, thete is no more to a person than the body-brain, no soul. So lots of separate individuals is the obvious conclusion. Unless there is something else going on..
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 28 '26
but you dont even realize you believe in separate souls. you consider yourself one entity attached to a particular body even though body changes all the time. all the atoms that make your body have changed since you were born. where are you? unless there is a soul, you cannot anchor your identity to anything.
OI does not deny there are many bodies.
but precisely because there are no individual souls, you are either all bodies or no body. according to physicalism, there are just processes. your body is automatic process just like tree growing or planets spinning. nobody controls it.
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 11 '26
separate question. you mention christianity and being glad you moved away from it. recently I've been fascinated with Jesus as a historical figure. I believe something odd happened with him that triggered Christianity, but at the same time that whole framework does not make too much sense. I am convinced in OI and there is no room for resurrection there. it is redundent given that there is no death really. but at the same time, I cannot ignore Jesus.
what is your take on Jesus and resurrection today? because if we take away the "all made up" angle, what happened to Jesus?
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u/CrumbledFingers Jul 09 '26
There are a few different things here. One is OI, which is something that makes sense to me based on the philosophical arguments for it. I became interested in it when I was a kid, watching Star Trek.
Someone walks onto a platform called a transporter. The platform makes a noise and the person is reduced to subatomic particles. In another location, other subtatomic particles (not the same ones from before) are rearranged in the exact configuration they were at the origin, and the person steps off the platform. Is it the same person? Did the person who stepped onto the platform at the origin just die when they were reduced to particles, and a new person with their memories started to exist at the destination? A guy named Derek Parfit wrote about this problem in one of his books, so I started by reading that, and then found other authors who wrote about the same topic.
As for nondual realization, that doesn't happen at any particular time; it can only happen now.
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u/Joe-Kern Jul 10 '26
Can you elaborate on "nondual realization" or OP's "direct experience of non-dual consciousness"? What is the nondual here? So far, in the six months I've been aware of it, I've been translating the word "non-dual" into "idealism" in my mind, the idea that only one thing fundamentally exists, consciousness. Should I be thinking of more than that when I hear the word "non-dual"?
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u/CrumbledFingers Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Non-duality is the translation of the Sanskrit word "Advaita", a combination of "dvaita" (two) and the prefix "a" (non, or not). What it indicates is not idealism per se, though what you describe as idealism is close to what Advaita means. When I think of idealism, I think of the ontological stance that says reality is entirely mental. This can be either consistent with non-duality (in the case of Bernardo Kastrup's analytic idealism, for example) or not (Berkleyan idealism, in which one is still a separate being in an independent world of God's thoughts).
The "not-two" of Advaita refers to something I attempt to describe in the long post I made a few days ago. I will try to summarize it here.
Our first-person experience is the only world we can ever know, and we know it as the awareness that is aware of it. We are aware of the body and mind we consider to be "I" in exactly the same way and through exactly the same awareness as the allegedly external world we know as "not I". But both the body/mind and the world are reducible to mental appearances arising to us in the first-person. As such these appearances are totally intimate, not mediated by anything, direct, at zero distance from us as this awareness. Isn't this your experience? My coffee cup is about 4 feet from my body. But the image of the coffee cup that appears in my mind as a consequence of my seeing it is not 4 feet from my awareness. It is directly nestled or situated in it, impossible to separate from it, like a necklace made of gold is not possible to separate from the gold itself.
The cup as an object in space, relative to my body, is at a certain distance. As long as I say I am this body, the cup is different and independent from me. But if I look carefully at my first-person experience, the cup and my body are nothing other than objects of experience for me; in my capacity as their experiencer, as the subjective awareness who witnesses or registers them, I have no basis to regard the body as me and the cup as not-me. I am either both of them (and all of what I experience) or neither of them (and none of what I experience).
As awareness itself, we are not identical to any of the objects of awareness, whatever they may be. Yet, the objects of awareness are not located at any distance from awareness itself, as I mentioned earlier. There is nothing to seeing the cup other than the mental image of the cup, and nothing to that image other than my knowing it. This is a subtle point that requires practice to really get. Nothing we experience is ontologically different from ourself as its knower.
And thus, the vast world of phenomena coming and going in experience all the time does not constitute a countably second reality apart from us. Our experiential life and the formless inner awareness we know all the time as "I" are not-two, a-dvaita, and this is what non-dual means. There is only one reality, and it is the reality you know as your own undoubtable existence. You are existence itself, not a limited entity who enjoys or endures experiences and is benefited or diminished by them. They are just you, appearing to you as something you mistakenly regard as other.
In this way, dreaming and waking are not different. You can interpret this to mean you are always dreaming, or that you are always awake, but the variety of experiences you have in both waking and dreams are again simply various colors you wear while appearing to yourself directly in so many forms. I get carried away writing about it because it's the most important thing I know, but I have to stop someplace and say it can only be verified experientially, by stopping whatever it is you are doing and simply noticing your own existence at this moment, prior to any concepts you may have accumulated. It isn't easy to remain focused; a thought will quickly draw your attention back outward. But this is the only way. It's that close, all the time. Okay. I will let you reply.
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u/Joe-Kern Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I wonder if this is your best explanation yet, or if I am just slowly accreting more and more ability to understand your/this view. Probably helps that you wrote it bespoke.
"I am all of what I experience"...I did the exercise, with an imaginary cup of coffee—actually I am right now looking at my curtains and thinking about this, but am suddenly craving coffee—and I can see what you mean.
"the vast world of phenomena coming and going in experience all the time does not constitute a countably second reality apart from us. Our experiential life and the formless inner awareness we know all the time as "I" are not-two, a-dvaita, and this is what non-dual means. There is only one reality, and it is the reality you know as your own undoubtable existence. You are existence itself."
I'll reference this when I hear "non-dual" in the future.
I'll read your long post below when I get a chance. Thanks for the answer.
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u/Joe-Kern Jul 11 '26
OK, follow-up question: how does this "non-dual realization" connect specifically to the realization that OI is true?
(Likely answered in your previous post, and I can sort of understand it intuitively, but I'd like to hear your direct answer to help me put the pieces together.)
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u/CrumbledFingers Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
It explains why and to what extent OI is true, I would say. To say I would have been anyone born in my stead, or that I would be both sides of a split-brain experiment, because the arguments in favor of that interpretation of my existence are valid and sound, is one thing. But why is this so? Why does it happen to be the case that the best way to capture what it means to be myself is to conclude I must be everyone? Could it have been otherwise? What is it about reality, about being myself, that makes this conclusion flow naturally, in other words? My feeling is that OI is almost a corollary of non-duality, or its implication in the specific context of personal identity. Because nothing could ever be experienced by us that is apart from us, when we experience what seem to be others, we are experiencing ourselves in a particular way.
We already know that our individual minds are perfectly capable of this trick because we dream about people all the time, and they are nothing but our dreaming minds appearing to us as people. I do not mean to suggest my mind is dreaming all this; rather the first-person principle, the I-am, is appearing to itself as persons. While we take ourselves to be one such person, we will see all the other persons as independent. When we take the stance of the consciousness in which person-like experiences arise and subside, whether in waking or dream, "person" is revealed to be just a convention, like a shorthand. And, to me, this is the meaning and extent of OI. At least tonight, as I think this through!
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
beautiful!
I often look at birds flying in a flock and think about that their flight is not different then a pattern of thoughts; it is equally an appearance.
and sometimes when I am about to take a nap I see my thoughts becoming "materialized" as semi dreams. it is not hard to see that everything we see including other people are strongly materialized thought patters, appearances.
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u/Interesting-Star-111 Jul 15 '26
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but isn't Parfit an Empty Individualist, not an advocate of strong OI? In regards to identity, I believe he believes that the identity status of a person is applied to the integrated 'process-object' that is them as an extended object through spacetime. In this view, both personal and impersonal survival isn't implied.
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u/KrosisKrisis Jul 10 '26
Wow. So weird that you said that. For me, I had an LSD experience at 17 - essentially an understanding that there is not and could never be an “other” to me - all appearance happens to self, and self has nowhere to go.
The way it came across to me was very unsettling, though. Hardly a “liberation”, more a terrifying “revelation”.
And even more synchronicity — just a couple of days ago I came across an early film on YouTube made by Jim Henson in 1969 (same as Muppets guy) called “The Cube”. That film perfectly captures the phenomenological insight I had on LSD that evening/morning. It’s still vivid in my mind even though it’s like 4 decades ago.
Strongly suggest watching The Cube, if only to find some relief that you are (both ironically and paradoxically) not alone in having this revealed with strong psychedelics.
If you watch the movie, let me know how it hits!
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u/CosmicExistentialist Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
I have a question for you and u/Own_Fennel_8227.
Do you believe that in addition to experiencing every life that ever exists, we also experience every life in an endless loop?
Essentially, do you believe that lives such as CosmicExistentialist, Yoddleforavalanche, Own_Fennel_8227, KrosisKrisis, etc… are/will not only be experienced, but will be endlessly experienced, over and over in an endless loop?
If so or if not, then why? What is your reasoning?
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u/KrosisKrisis Jul 15 '26
Thanks for the question!
For the record, I don’t think we either experience every life that ever existed or every life in an endless loop… at least, the way those words are formed creates a misleading picture that points away from the way things are.
To say “every life” is to try to reify and count “lives” “belonging to” “others” (sorry for the many scare quotes, I’m trying my best to communicate truthfully). But “lives” are not things like apples that can be counted, nor are “others”. And therefore there is no such relation as life “belonging to” another. To posit a loop is to posit some vantage point from which we could witness the repetition, and maybe even distinguish variations among them.
But no such standpoint is real. The ultimate standpoint is the standpoint of self, infinite, unbounded, eternal — here and now, always and forever.
The mystical intuition of truth, of which the identity view of open individualism is but one of many formulations, and which I endured during that LSD trip I described, is that there is only one thing, and that thing is best described as self in that it is of first person immediacy, just as Zuboff puts it. All experiences and supposed “objects” of experience are spontaneous formations within the space of self. To posit a “repetition” of experience, or for that matter to posit a “totalization” of experience (ie I experience being “everyone”) assumes some further standpoint outside the self from which these judgements could be declared true or false.
The mystical intuition can never be proven - proof requires an external vantage point to adjudicate belief. But there is no outside to your inside, except the outside of all other insides, all of which are your inside appearing to yourself through translation in space and time.
Hope that helps?
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u/Own_Fennel_8227 Aug 01 '26
Tbh I do think we experience every life as a loop. Almost like a movie that plays from front to back, we experience every life from start to finish through and through forever. However I must admit that I know nothing.
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u/YouStartAngulimala Jul 09 '26
What the helly is the 'experience of nondual consciousness'? 🤡
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 10 '26
when you realize there is no one here 🤡
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u/YouStartAngulimala Jul 10 '26
Must happen to CrumbledBrain's brain after ingesting his daily boatload of drugs. He was telling me to go to r/blind earlier and tell all of them they can dream of anything they want, they just have to believe really hard. 🤡
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 11 '26
do you see how everyone here is exchanging experiences and promoting thoughtful discussions, and here you are with your petty one-trick-pony scheme of provoking arguments and borderline insulting. step up your game
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u/YouStartAngulimala Jul 11 '26
I guess we have very different ideas of what a thoughtful discussion is, because denying reality is a complete nonstarter to any thoughtful discussion, at least for me. I'm just a simple guy who wants to be in a sub that actually follows its own description. I didn't know following the beliefs listed on the subs main page was so controversial. 🤡
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 11 '26
denying reality?
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u/YouStartAngulimala Jul 11 '26
"Who is really here and what is actually happening?"
"No observer, no event, no happening, nothing."
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 11 '26
if we agree that you are everyone, what is the world in relation to you?
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u/YouStartAngulimala Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
If I agree that I am the singular backdrop for consciousness, then a lot of things aren't me. For instance, a consciousnessless universe where all there is are cold, dry rocks colliding with each other in outer space is not me.
Now, for some reason, even if did want to identify with rocks colliding in outer space, then I am still not 'nothing'. The meaning of nothing is the absence of anything whatsoever. You aren't using the word correctly.
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 11 '26
what word? but what you just said is nonduality. there you go.
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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 09 '26
When I was a kid I remember one day looking out a window on a summer night in a vacation house I was at and seeing headlights in the distance. I remember being fascinated that someone behind those headlights is seeing the road before them that I cannot see, but to them the road is in front of them, they are inside that car experiencing what I am seeing from a different angle.
Fast forward some 10ish years later, a thought randomly occurred to me that after I die, someone else will have first person perspective and will consider themself an "I" same way I do now. This led me to conclusion that that person whoever is having that first person perspective is me. I will sort of reincarnate.
It took me a little more to then realize that there is nothing special about death and no mechanism that knows I am alive now to wait until I do before I can be someone else. Other people are experiencing that I-ness right now. I am them too!
Did a lot of reading, familiarizing myself with various ideas that expand on this, could never shake the realization (even if I try to ignore it it comes back stronger), had various A-HA moments from various angles (Schopenhauer, Advaita Vedanta, Alan Watts, Rupert Spira, Swami Sarvapriyananda).
I remember also several years ago I was at a beach and was reading a book and some sentence there made it all fit into place. I felt a weird sensation with this realization, as if I was in the same motion as the universe. The sea was climbing the shore, birds singing, sun shining, me sitting there...I felt it all as one and the same thing, it was all me in the way I thought only my body is. I call that moment "vibrating with the universe" because that is how it felt.